


burned out

by wearethewitches



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexuality, Developing Relationship, F/F, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Polyamory, Queer Themes, Queerplatonic Relationships, Teen Romance, Teenagers, don't sue me for how long my sentences are, posting an old work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 18:04:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17688251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethewitches/pseuds/wearethewitches
Summary: Everyone thinks Henry and Grace are together.





	burned out

Everyone thinks that Henry and Grace are together. Grace can’t deny it – they are together, all the time. She walks from her manor to the corner of Mifflin Street and waits for him to leave his mansion, playing with a pack of cards, trying to perfect her card tricks and waiting to walk with him to school, usually having to call down the road as Regina holds him up to kiss him goodbye. Occasionally, he’s so late that Emma offers them a ride, on her way to the station. At school, every class they share, they sit beside each other and at break and lunch, they seek each other out like homing pigeons.

After school, Henry and Grace sometimes hang out at the park, or at Granny’s or even Grace’s house, doing homework and studying together. Her dad even lets him stay for dinner on Tuesdays and Grace gets to have lasagne at the mansion on Thursdays. She gets to witness Regina and Emma float around each other, for literal _years_ not realising how _gay as fuck_ they were and is sat there in the kitchen when they kiss and Henry blurts out, _“Finally!”_

It’s natural that everyone might think they’re together. When Violet comes into the picture, Grace has to deal with condolences. _Condolences._ As if Henry were her boyfriend or something inane like that.

Grace is her own person. Henry might be her only friend, but she’s always been a loner. Being the Mad Hatter’s daughter, being _lonely, poor, single-father Jefferson’s daughter_ , had left zero to no children who wanted to be around her or grew up with her. All her relationships have been with grown adults her whole life, until Henry. Heteronormativity – which exists, even in people who came from lands that accepted everything from asexuality to polyamory – is a curse upon the two of them, however.

“I’m not Henry’s girlfriend,” she snaps at Hansel when he questions her and Ava loses her front teeth to Grace’s right hook at lunchtime, when the girl sneers at her and asks _why the fuck you being mean to my brother, rabbit girl?_

Her father pulls her from school completely when he picks her up, jittery and worried out of his mind. Grace only allows it because he orders Henry – and then Violet, too, eventually – to visit after school and on weekends for a minimum of three hours. The minimum is his idea and it’s something that Henry’s mothers allow. Violet’s father is a little less at ease at the arrangement, until Violet pulls the ‘ _aren’t I allowed friends?’_ card. Grace feels slightly lucky her mad, protective father includes social interaction when thinking of her wellbeing.

Violet is strange, to Grace. She’s pretty and Grace looks at her sometimes and…and thinks, _Henry doesn’t deserve her_. She’s so joyful about the modern realm and loves Grace’s card tricks. When she laughs, Grace feels her heart thud in her chest and flutters in her stomach. When pink spreads across her cheeks and Henry kisses her on the lips, so much more grown-up, Grace…

Grace isn’t jealous. She really isn’t.

In the mornings, Grace runs. She ties on her running trainers and wears a hoodie that, in the summer and springtime, she divests of as soon as her manor disappears from sight – her father isn’t ready to see her in a sports bra, she’d decided when she was fourteen and bought her first one with Emma on a weekend trip to Boston with Henry. Grace runs all over Storybrooke, but by the time her sixteenth birthday rolls around, there’s a specific route she follows. Going from her manor, Grace passes Mifflin Street – waving at Emma as she takes the Bug to work – down two side-streets, then across Main Street and through another side-street to the pier, running along it all the way to the end and then all the way around the town, following the treeline to her manor again.

Mostly, when she runs, Grace listens to music. When she isn’t listening to music, she’s thinking about the heat that swirls in her abdomen when she sees Violet and winces when, _every time_ , logic makes her think of Henry’s mothers and intrusive thoughts prompt her into imagining that same feeling in the two women and what it might lead to when they have no reason not to follow their desires.

Her eighteenth birthday party is practically a rave and her father is holed up at Henry’s mansion in a spare room, while Grace gets half-drunk with her whole high school year-group. That ‘half-drunk’ turns into what Emma the next day calls ‘blackout drunk’, after Grace sees Henry and Violet getting it on in her father’s hat room, Violet still wearing her own, specially-crafted-by-Grace doll hat.

Her father doesn’t really mind her being drunk. The rest of the parents of all the other seventeen and eighteen year olds, though, very much do. By now, the condolences had stopped – but apparently, being blackout drunk means you forget what happened the night before.

Those condolences start up again less than a day before the party ends.

“What the fuck happened?” Grace questions herself, leaning on a railing, looking out onto the water. Her calves ache and her mouth is still like sandpaper, over forty-eight hours later. She hasn’t seen Henry or Violet and neither have answered her phone-calls or texts. _That’s not true,_ she then thinks. Henry had texted back, saying nothing happened and then didn’t say anything else whatsoever, not even mentioning he and Violet hooked up _in her father’s hat room._

 _I thought we were best friends,_ Grace thinks, curling her hands into fists, feeling an anger in her stomach and a bubbling- a bubbling _fear_. She’d be alone without Henry – Henry and Violet. Violet, who she’s basically in love with. Henry, who isn’t her brother or her lover, but something still more close than platonic. He was the one she’d first got secretly drunk with on abandoned rum in the equally as abandoned Jolly Roger. He was the one who wormed his way into her father’s heart, regardless of how he was – _is_ – Grace’s best friend.

 _Violet, Violet, Violet_ -

Grace wants this out of her skin. She doesn’t want to be in love with Violet. She stares out onto the bay, feeling a dash of impulsiveness and following it. Gripping the railing, she climbs over, pausing only to take her iPod out of her pocket and put it on the side of the pier, carefully climbing down the wall, using a rusting chain to get to what few feet of the beach remain.

The sand is wet beneath her running shoes – the tide going out. Crouching down, she unlaces her shoes, taking them off and tucking her socks inside, throwing them up onto the pier behind her before walking into the water determinedly. She gasps at the cold and it momentarily drowns out the _Violet, Violet, Violet_. But only momentarily. She walks in, flinching as her foot catches on rocks and shells in the water.

Soon, Grace is wading in the water, but she’s barely shivering – the adrenaline of her run hasn’t disappeared yet. She swims out further, the tide pulling her further out. Grace sets her eyes on a yellow buoy in the distance, uncaring of the large lengths ahead of her. _I know how to swim_.

Her muscles are burning before she makes it halfway, but she doesn’t give up or give in. Her mouth tastes of saltwater, but her head is still all _Violet, Violet, Violet_ and it’s only when she makes it to the buoy, pulling herself up into the open, upside-down, V-shaped cage inside, fingers frozen, that Grace realises her mistake.

“Shit,” she whispers, already tearing up. “Shit, shit, shit, shit-”

Grace sits on the buoy, curling up and leaning against the rusting, yellow metal mesh, biting her lip. _I’m so stupid. I’m so fucking stupid._ Her mouth tastes like saltwater and she hates it worse than the sandpaper of before. _Henry’s going to be so worried. Papa-_

The girl flinches at the thought.

In the distance, she sees small, dark figures on the pier – a tiny yellow Bug is in the background and the figures are obviously angry, moving quickly and violently. One goes to go over the railings, Grace thinks. _Papa, it has to be Papa._ Her fingers are freezing and her toenails are blue. The other dark figure with the lighter head – _Emma?_ – stops her father from going over the railing.

Darkness comes before she realises she’s falling asleep.

* * *

 _Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep_ -

Grace cranks her eyes open, feeling bundled and warm. In front of her, there’s a mechanical device on a metal pole and everything is the same white-blue-pale shade. _Hospital?_ Grace shifts her hand, feeling a rubbery pressure around her finger.

“Grace? Grace, are you awake?” Her father questions, voice trembling. The heart-monitor picks up as Grace comes to better awareness, blinking tiredly. “Grace!” Her father leans over, face coming close to hers. Grace is far too used to his up-close-and-personal behaviour to move backwards, instead shifting her head forwards to knock his lightly. He cries, grinning. “My baby girl – she’s awake!” He pulls back, twisting and shouting. “She’s awake, she’s awake!”

A few seconds later, a nurse comes in, closely followed by-

Grace’s heart-monitor beeps faster and faster, a mantra of _Violet, Violet, Violet_ flowing through her brain as she remembers what happened – her feelings, the blackout night, the pier and the buoy. Shame floods her and she shuts her eyes, putting a hand to her face.

“Oh my god, what did I do?”

“You- you swam,” Henry reaches over, taking her hand as she pulls her legs up, curling slightly even as the nurse checks her over. Violet stands at his shoulder, worried. “You swam all the way out and you were half-dead from hypothermia when Leroy finally got the lifeboat out and over. He saved your life. Why did you swim out there, Grace?” Henry starts to shout, his grip tight.

“Hey, don’t pressure her-” her father starts, before Henry glares at him, interrupting.

“No! She practically committed suicide, going out there!”

“I wasn’t committing suicide,” Grace gets out quickly, her father’s face crumbling and making her guilt manifest tenfold.

“Then what were you doing?” Henry turns on her again, eyes alight with anger and _pain_. “You nearly died, Grace!”

“Can- can I speak to Violet, please?” Grace breathes and Henry’s face twists.

“What?”

“Can I speak to Violet, please?” She asks, the nurse snapping.

“Give her space. Out, both of you.”

Henry and her father leave, Grace avoiding looking at them as the nurse checks her over more fully, having her sit up and touch her thumbs to her fingers and wiggle her toes. Once she’s pronounced well, the nurse leaves her room – _private, Papa would have nothing less expensive for me_ – and Violet lurches over, hugging her tightly.

“We thought- we thought you were going to die, Grace,” she says, burrowing her head in Grace’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Grace whispers, hugging her just as tightly back. When Violet pulls away, wiping her eyes, Grace tucks her loose hair behind her ear and wishes for a brush.

“What did you want to talk to me about?”

Grace sucks in a breath. _Oh, oh no, I can’t_ \- Grace wants to tell her, but all of a sudden it seems cruel. _I can’t say it was impulse because I was feeling angry, angry about my second most-best friend being in a relationship with my first most-best friend._

At least, in the back of her mind, distantly, she has that down. Henry always comes first, even when she’s in love with Violet. Something clicks, but that click isn’t just an idea formalising – it’s another door opening.

“I…I love you,” Grace says truthfully. It stumbles from her lips. “I love you.”

Violet’s eyes widen in confusion, before they shine again and she reaches out, hugging her tightly. “I love you, too, Grace. So much. You’re my best friend.”

Grace’s stomach lurches.

_No, no!_

“You’re- you’re my best friend, too,” she says, swallowing a lump in her throat, feeling like she’s about to throw up. The new door in her head opens more and more. “I love Henry, too, but not like you.”

“…oh?” Violet pulls away slightly, still hugging her, still close, eyeing her strangely. “How do you love me?”

_This is it._

The door opens wide and everything floods from it.

_No, no…Henry. Henry and Violet, gods, no! Please! I’ve had enough, please! Let it end, let me forget!_

Grace feels her eyes pool with tears, Violet moving to sit on the bed, gripping her hands tightly.

“I- I _love_ you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, you’re with Henry and it’s not fair to either of you,” Grace hears the heart-monitor leap up high, loud and persisting and she throws the damn thing on her finger off, making it flat-line – a mistake, as her father comes leaping back in, eyes full of fear.

“Grace?”

Grace winces and Violet fetches the clip again, reattaching it to her finger gently. Henry is behind her father and his anger has evaporated, panic quickly being replaced by relief, his eyes sliding shut. Grace thinks of him, going through everything the new door in her own mind revealed to her – Henry’s not her brother, not her lover, but _I love him_ , she thinks, _I love him and I don’t want to be with him like normal, like I want to be with Violet, but I want him with me. I just want to exist with him, together, him and me and Violet, forever and ever._

Her love for Henry is the ground, an ever-turning planet. Her love for Violet is the sun – she reaches and Violet is an always-fiery heat, a warmth that Henry isn’t because Grace and Henry are the same. Grace could live without ever pressing her lips to Henry’s, she doesn’t ever _want_ to. It’s a platonic romance, like _soulmates_ and _True Love_ but without the kissing.

Violet…Violet is kissing and maybe sex – but Grace doesn’t like sex and doesn’t think she ever will, so, _not_ sex – but Violet is definitely kissing-romance and there’s nothing platonic about how Grace loves her.

Nothing platonic at all.

She wonders if this is how Emma and Regina love each other.

“I swam out into the bay because I was angry and stupid and in love with my best friends and I regretted it as soon as I got to the buoy,” she says to her father, feeling Violet’s hands grip hers _oh_ so tightly, enough that she worries for her circulation, briefly.

Her father stares at her in shock. “You…you’re in love with Henry and Violet?”

Shame flares in her gut and she takes her hands from Violet, lying back on her bed and pulling her covers up and over her head, but her father once again leaps, tugging them down with muttered _no_ ’s. Grace stares up at the ceiling and doesn’t want them or her to speak – she wants them out of her room, actually. _Maybe not Papa,_ Grace adjusts her belief, _just Violet and Henry._

Grace shouldn’t have said this now, when she hasn’t even come to terms with it herself and can’t explain it in words. She needs them to go, because she can’t leave her own hospital room. She needs them to leave – but maybe she needs to leave. Storybrooke is everything, right now, everything she needs to get away from – it’s memories, her life for the past, what, thirty-five years?

_Henry, Violet, Henry, Violet, Henry, Violet._

It’s a new mantra-

“Out,” her father snaps at them both – and when has he come to know her so well? When has he come to know everything she’s ever wanted or wished for?

Grace can’t remember.

She puts it up to how he raised her alone from birth, from the moment her mother died and till now; to how he knows everyone else’s heads better than his own.

_Henry, Violet, Henry, Violet, Henry, Violet-_

They protest but Jefferson shouts and orders them to leave, frightening Violet and causing Henry to take a step back, Emma banging the door open and dragging them out, shutting the door behind them. Grace can hear them both calling for her, shouting at Emma, but her father takes off his hat and puts it on the floor.

“Papa?”

“We’re going on a holiday,” he says, voice firm and steadier than she’s heard in years. “Write a note with these,” he takes a notepad and pencil from his pocket, chucking them to her and she watches him crouch down, hands waiting on the brim of his world-jumping hat. He waits.

Grace realises he’s waiting for her.

* * *

Her return to Storybrooke is a year later. In tailored, slim-fitting slacks, a button-up oxford shirt and heels, with cards flipping through her fingers and her hair tied up in a long, long ponytail that flutters in the wind, Grace stands on the corner of Mifflin Street, watching with curiosity as Emma leans against a pillar. A squalling baby in her arms with dark hair that can be seen for miles, Grace briefly thinks of Violet, but Regina joins her and takes the child, inadvertently spotting Grace down the street.

She gives the baby back to Emma. Purple smoke is Grace’s only warning before Regina appears in front of her and hugs the life out of her.

“Gods, girl, a _year?_ ”

Grace presses her face down, bending her back slightly as the smaller woman presses a kiss to her cheek.

“You’re too tall.”

“I haven’t grown in years.”

“You’re still too tall,” Regina says, voice sounding wet and sad. Grace’s own eyes prick with tears, before she leans out of the hug, wiping her eyes and smiling hesitantly.

“Who’s the kid?”

“My kid,” Regina replies, a brilliant, soft smile making its way onto her face. “Emma Lucy Mills, the second. We call her Lucy, for short. Emma still blushes at the reminder.”

“Not Swan-Mills?”

Regina gives Grace a flat, unamused look. “I did not push out seven pounds of baby to name her _Emma Swan-Mills._ I’ve already got one of those.”

Grace giggles slightly, tucking her cards into her pocket. “Life got interesting.”

“Yes, it did.” Regina breathes in deeply. “Henry and Violet are in college, in Boston.”

“I know.”

“Do they know you’re back?” Regina asks delicately. Grace shrugs.

“Papa’s visiting them for me. Getting their opinion on whether I should transfer there or not.”

“Where are you now?”

“Europe.”

“That’s very vague.”

“That’s very private,” Grace corrects. “Though, if you wouldn’t mind not telling anyone else, I’m in Paris.”

“France is lovely, apparently.”

“It is. My tan confuses Papa.”

There’s a long silence, before Emma comes wandering over. She waves silently at Grace, crossing the road with a bundled-up Emma two-point-oh/Lucy in her arms. Grace peers at her little face, eyes crinkling as she smiles.

“Hey.”

“Hiya,” Grace says to the baby, before looking to Emma. “Hi, Emma.”

“Henry and Violet told us what happened, last year,” the woman doesn’t even _pause_ before getting into it. Grace nods sharply. “So, are you going to apologise and chase them, or what? ‘Cause they’ve been pining for you, girl, like, _hella_.”

Grace’s smile doesn’t waver, eyes glimmering. “So, I have your blessing?”

Regina snorts. “Do you think, if you didn’t have it, we would be talking civilly right now?”

It’s the beginning of the end, basically.

* * *

A young girl gets off a train and she heads deep into the city she’s travelled to, a book in her bag and a determined expression on her face. She makes her way to a building – a block of apartments – and she sees the guard at the front door with a salt-and-pepper beard that’s more salt than pepper, a threadbare knit hat on his head. The girl takes out her book, flipping through the pages, tracing a phrase under a picture, where a man with sharp eyes and a short stature reaches for a girl on a yellow buoy.

_Leroy saving Grace’s life_

The man who looks like Leroy, but older and far more haggard, is easy to sneak past. _More Sleepy than Grumpy_ , the girl thinks, smiling slightly as she makes her way up into the building, finding apartment _815_. She knocks.

A new, younger man answers, hair as brown as she remembers but his face vacant of any familiarity – the girl is a stranger to him.

“I’ve got no time to explain,” the girl starts hurriedly, before holding out her book to him, showing him the front cover _._ “Do you recognise this?”

“Who are you?” He asks, a small smile slipping on and then quickly off his face as he reads the title of _Once Upon a Time._ “I have never seen it with that cover before.”

“My name’s Lucy – Lucy Mills,” she says, before putting the book away and ducking under his arm, heading for the fridge in his kitchen. “I’m your sister who you can’t remember.”

“You- you’re _what?_ ”

“Henry,” Lucy looks at the contents of his fridge – or rather, the lack of contents. “I am disowning you.”

“You can’t disown me,” Henry exclaims, shutting the door. “I’m phoning the police!”

“If you do that, I’ll say you kidnapped me.”

“Why would you say that? They won’t believe you,” he says, picking up the phone as she shuts the fridge door.

“They would,” Lucy argues, going to sit on his island table, putting her bag on top and rifling through it. “Mom said you’d only believe me if I told you something personal that only you would know.”

“Like what?” Henry asks, bewildered.

Lucy takes out a dagger – shiny, dark and silvery, with a wavy blade, a name carved into it. Lucy raises it, showing off the fancy _Rumplestiltskin._

“Like how your name used to be on here, in an alternate timeline before you wrote the original one back with your Author powers. There was an accident. Violet and Grace nearly died and your Grandma and Gideon _did_ – Grandpa tricked you into killing him. Lots of bad things happened. Only you and Mom remember.”

“…holy shit. What the hell happened to me this time? How do I not remember you?” Henry stares at her, eyes wide.

Lucy rolls her eyes. “There’s another Curse, dumbo.”

“Of _course_ there’s another Curse,” he immediately groans, leaning on the island table. “So, when did it happen? Why does all this seem normal?”

“Seriously?” Lucy raises her eyebrows, staring at him with an incredulous expression. “Grumpy is your _entrance guard_. In what universe is _that_ normal?”

“Grumpy…” Henry’s brows furrow together. “I’m going to assume this is another part of the Curse you’re talking about, because I don’t know anyone called Grumpy.”

Lucy rubs her face, putting Rumplestiltskin’s dagger away. “Why did you leave Storybrooke in the first place?”

“College,” he replies, but he’s a second too late.

“Who went with you?” Lucy questions.

“No-one.”

“That’s Cursed Henry talking,” Lucy shakes her head. “Violet went with you to Boston U.”

“…no she didn’t.” Henry shakes his head.

Lucy nods a few times. “Yes she did. Grace joined you half way through.”

“Grace is dead,” Henry flinches.

“Oh goody, she is going to be _pissed_ when she finds _that_ out,” Lucy mutters. “Nope. She’s alive. Here, see?” Opening up her _Once Upon a Time_ , she flips to _Leroy saves Grace’s life_. “Read.”

Henry reads, flipping page after page, reading her story. Lucy knows it, of course, though the start she had to read in her book. _Grace fell in love with both of them and that was really confusing for her,_ Lucy remembers, _so she went on a holiday for a while with her dad and when she came back, she went to Boston U with Henry and Violet. They lived together and fell in proper love, then when they finished college, Violet married them both, but Henry and Grace didn’t marry each other_.

When Henry finishes, he sits back and cries. Lucy, knowing her brother doesn’t cry often, waits him out. When he’s done and clears his face, he looks at her with focused eyes.

“How the hell do we break this Curse? What villain are we dealing with this time?”

“Well, True Love’s Curse should be fine,” Lucy says with a shrug. “And the villain’s already been defeated, don’t worry – the Blue Fairy’s been dead for ages. I’m just here to collect you all.”

Henry blows air out his mouth, taking that in. “The Blue Fairy…wow.”

“She doesn’t like your queer-platonic slash polyamorous slash odd relationship,” Lucy shrugs.

Henry sits there for a moment, a small smile growing on his face, before it quickly turns into a grin. “And this Grumpy doesn’t remember, either?”

“He’s supposed to remember, but I don’t know, we might have to kidnap him, Swan-style.”

“Tie him up and put him in the trunk?”

“Tie him up and put him in the trunk. Let’s get you back to your lady-loves.”

Henry grins, reaching over to ruffle her hair.

Lucy only allows it because he doesn’t know the consequences – and when they’ve kidnapped Grumpy and are about to get in the car, Lucy gets her revenge, pulling his underwear up tight and quick.

His yelp is _everything._


End file.
